Directory signs are used to display the names and office locations of persons, departments or the like in buildings or other locales. Because the occupants of most office or institutional buildings will change over time, the directory sign should easily accommodate corresponding changes in the names displayed by that sign. Furthermore, the directory sign should easily accommodate adding or removing names in an established sequence of names, without leaving unsightly gaps or blank spaces in the directory.
Directory signs of the prior art have utilized various expedients in an attempt to meet these and other desired goals. For example, directory signs are known which have each individual person's name and office location on an elongated strip of transparent or opaque material. These strips are first arranged in the desired alphabetical or other order, and the individual strips next are clamped in place within a frame which maintains the overall message strip array. In order to add or delete a name, the entire array of strips must be disassembled, the appropriate strips inserted or removed, and the array then reassembled in the desired order, a chore which is particularly troublesome because of the vertical orientation of most directory signs. This trouble is exacerbated in signs where the individual names are displayed on glass strips, because of the risk of breakage and physical injury resulting when the combined glass strips are disassembled.
Another kind of prior-art directory sign utilizes separate message compartments to receive and display message inserts, and an example is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,660,918. These compartments or insert holders typically comprise a plurality of individual channel members which are assembled in a frame to form the directory sign. The individual message strips are pinned or otherwise located in the appropriate insert. Name changes in such directory signs are made by removing the particular insert and changing the message therein, and then replacing the insert in the array of inserts making up the directory sign. New names may be added by moving the existing inserts upwardly as a unit, making room to install a new insert containing the name being added. However, this arrangement also is relatively awkward, and directory signs constructed of such individual removable message holders tend to be relatively expensive.